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Part Of One Gay Marriage Suit Against Indiana Reinstated

Stan Jastrzebski
/
WBAA News

The federal judge who declared Indiana‘s gay marriage ban unconstitutional has reinstated part of a separate marriage lawsuit against the state.

In an order filed on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Young restored a suit from four same-sex couples who were married outside Indiana.

The couples sued Governor Pence in an effort to get the state to recognize their marriages as legal. Attorney General Greg Zoeller‘s office asked that the lawsuit be dismissed, saying the governor did not have the authority to affirm the legality of marriages.

But Young said that when Pence wrote a pair of memos instructing state agencies on how to respond to Young‘s June 25 ruling striking down the same-sex marriage ban, Pence demonstrated his authority on which marriages should be legal.

Young did not restore another portion of the lawsuit which challenged the state‘s marriage law as unconstitutional, since that was covered in the June order from another case.

Young‘s order made same-sex marriage legal in Indiana for a little more than two days before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay. The appeals court later upheld Young‘s ruling after Zoeller appealed, and Zoeller has since appealed the Seventh Circuit‘s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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